Kick off: Global Digital Cultures

On Friday, 27 March 2020, the University of Amsterdam will kick-off its new research priority area 'Global Digital Cultures' (GDC). Researchers and students from all faculties at the UvA are warmly invited to this one-day event at the REC. There will be keynote speeches by Louise Amoore (Durham University) and Marleen Stikker (waag.org), as well as plenary discussions, breakout sessions, and information on new seed funding for interdisciplinary research and events. Digitisation is transforming cultural practices around the world - from the way it is changing norms of friendship, intimacy and sexual relations, to how it enables new modes of public expression and collective action, while simultaneously facilitating ubiquitous data-driven forms of surveillance. Digital platforms and mobile apps, such as Facebook, Tinder, YouTube, Instagram, the Russian platform VK, and the China-based sites WeChat, TikTok, and Tantan, have rapidly become central to the production, circulation, consumption, and monetisation of culture. GDC will critically explore these developments from a broad interdisciplinary perspective, combining insights from the social sciences, humanities and economics. The research area will be coordinated by Thomas Poell (Media Studies) and Marieke de Goede (Political Science), together with Olav Velthuis (Sociology), Jeroen de Kloet (Media Studies), and Nachoem Wijnberg (Amsterdam Business School).